Tillandsia kirschnekii Click thumbnails for full size, scaled to a new window.
Tillandsia kirschnekii
John Olsen 11/11. From the type plant in Germany.
Chris Larson 11/12. Some have dark blue others lighter with white centres. No fragrance
George Nieuwenhoven 11/12. Large flower for size of plant!
Peter Tristram 11/12. There seems to be a few different clones around.
Kerry McNicol 12/13
Adam Bodzioch 12/16
Kerry McNicol 30/12/13 ... "Just a ‘share’ of the richly coloured flower on my kirschneckii. I love it. What a great display the clump will be in ????? years." Chris Larson 30/12/13 ... "A very pretty little plant. It is not slow for me, so with a little TLC it should clump up well. It doesn’t seem to have a defined flowering period, it has been popping out flowers for ages." Derek Butcher 30/12/13 ... "Hi Kerry Mc. You have me worried. Your plant looks like a seedling. Who did you get it from? To my male eye I would say the petal colour was cerise whereas the description says blue violet with white eye." Chris Larson 30/12/13 ... "Hi Kerry. Sometimes I have looked at my plants & thought the flower was dark - but this has always just been the fading flower. The same clumps have always had other plants with the blue flower with white centre - which then turn a much darker colour.
In answer to Derek’s question – I do not know if these are bred in cultivation or by division of wild collected plants. However this plant is not a seedling – it is a division from my plant.
However the only way to assess this is inspection at an earlier stage than when the photo was taken." John Olsen 30/12/13 ... "Hi Kerry. I looked at your picture and checked against my pictures as I recalled the colour to be more paler and if anything touching blue. You see the flower darkens as it ages.
Is that the source of the deep colour of your plant or are you lucky to have a nice clone? My plants are yet to flower this summer.
As Chris says it does clump up at a reasonable pace. Some come well back on the stem so don’t prune the dead looking bit."
Linda Wilkes 10/17
Chris Larson 12/17
Steve Molnar 10/17
Chris Larson 12/17
Linda Wilkes ... "Our first flowering of this pretty little species . It looks like such a big flower for a small plant which adds to the appeal." Steve Molnar ... "It's disappointing when you got to a Till day, pay a bit extra for something special, but just get the standard version. This was suppose to be T. kirschnekii `Blue flower', but now that it has flowered it looks like a regular one to me. Oh well, thems the breaks." Peter Tristram ... "Enjoy this little gem. John and I were lucky enough to get some plants each from Heidelberg BG before they closed the doors to private collectors. Timm Stolten, the outside world’s contact with the gardens, has left now too.
As for the ‘blue’ bit, it’s just info for those who don’t know the species (I guess most people) so they know that flowers will be blue though maybe purplish-blue would be better. There has been debate for years about what colour code to use with these types with large petal blades with blue seeming to be the taxonomists’ choice.
Over the years I managed to get quite a few clones of this Peruvian beauty. The flowers vary from light to dark... purplish -blue. As for cost, irrespective of the seller, this species is still rare and there’s nothing cheap about a trip to Germany. They used to sell for around 10-15 Euro there when I went to the DBG conferences." Linda Wilkes ... "I am in no way disappointed in our plant of this, we have loved watching it grow and patiently stalked the plant twice daily watching the inflorescence grow. The flowers are simply stunning. I also thought that in the bromeliad world that the term "blue" pretty much refered the the fact that it will have purple floral bits." Chris Larson ... "Stevan talked about the “normal form” quite a while ago. Here are 3 different plants, with different foliage – you may need to zoom in to see the difference. I also include the pic of 2 of the flower colour forms that I showed some time ago."
